


begin again

by meowcode



Category: Stand Still Stay Silent
Genre: Gen, there is super vaguely implied reynir/lalli/emil but not enuf to justify tagging
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-28
Updated: 2020-06-28
Packaged: 2021-03-04 04:22:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 579
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24963697
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/meowcode/pseuds/meowcode
Summary: What they find in Saimaa wins.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 12





	begin again

Onni told him, once, that they weren’t allowed to make mistakes. It’s not a memory Lalli likes to look back on. He’d been lucky. No one had died at the time. But he still hadn’t eaten properly for about a week after.

Lalli hadn’t thought he was making a mistake, this time. Because he was following Onni. Because Onni, even if he left and it made Lalli’s whole body burn for reasons he didn’t understand, didn’t make mistakes. He was scared of things and he cried too much but he didn’t mess up- he’d been taught by Ensi longer than Lalli had. 

No, following Onni couldn’t have been a mistake. He must have made another, somewhere. When he saw the kade, with his grandmother’s skin and his grandmother’s voice, it’d crooned at him about how big he’d gotten. How pretty he was now. And he’d wavered. That must’ve been it, because in his distraction he didn’t notice the trolls coming. 

That’s why he was alone, now- not alone. Stupid. The kade’s heel digs into the back of his head, pressing him down. A sharp rock digs into the back of his throat. He diverts his attention to breathing through his nose, but he has so little attention to give. He should struggle- he braces his hand against the ground and it immediately slips again- the blood-

Ensi laughs above him- his grandma didn’t do that- 

“This could be over, child, if you’d just look at me.”

He can’t- He hears Onni scream his name, picks out the sound of Emil’s flamethrower in the fight. He doesn’t know what grandma is talking about, he can barely see as it is. There’s blood in his eyes, he thinks, from where he’d been thrown into a tree. But she had always been particular about respect like that.

The heel on his head eases up. There’s blood in his throat from where the rock has cut him, he can only pull up enough to sputter violently.

Ensi- the kade- is silent. But it’s still so loud. Part of Lalli wonders if Reynir is okay. He’s not immune. Part of Lalli wonders if Emil will have it in him to blow Lalli up once the kade gets him, and then Lalli realizes he’s going to die.

There are thin fingers in his hair, stroking. They push blood-soaked strands out of his face, wipe gore out of his eyes. His grandma never did this. Emil did. Reynir never cared enough about his hair to, never cared about his own hair enough to even consider someone else’s. The fingers on him now are too willowy to be either of theirs.

“Be happy, little one,” Ensi says. “You’ll be so useful. Isn’t that what you’ve always wanted?”

The fingers cup his face, lift his head. His eyes are closed. He’s so tired. The other’s fighting seems so distant, like it’s happening down a tunnel and Lalli can only hear the echoes. Like they couldn’t possibly get to him in time.

“I’ll take you back to Keuruu. I’m sure no one will notice. You’re already so strange, anyway.”

Someone yells for him again. He can’t pick out the voices, now, none besides grandma. 

“Look at me when I speak to you, child.”

That  _ is _ his grandma. People always said he looked so much like her. Blearily, Lalli blinks his eyes open. The blur in his vision isn’t blood, now, but he still meets his own eyes through it.

**Author's Note:**

> me writing this: dark self care
> 
> i promise i’m writing something longer that doesn’t involve anyone dying


End file.
